


The Healing

by Katowisp



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adorable Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22499602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katowisp/pseuds/Katowisp
Summary: The Mandalorian recognizes the moment Greef Karga decides to double cross his co-conspirators.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 95





	The Healing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedfieldFamilyFan24](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedfieldFamilyFan24/gifts).



> Sort of a companion piece to The Kid, but not absolutely necessary to read that first.   
> Thanks much to my editor, RedfieldFamilyfan24.

After the Child healed Greef Karga, the Mandalorian sat in silence on the far side of the camp. His parents had accused him of tenacity, if not an expert at the books. He got there—it just took a longer, more circuitous route that had often involved doodles on his desk and in the tabs of his notes.

His first interactions with the Child clicked into place.

He hadn’t even known he was piecing together a puzzle. 

Now, months later, he realized it was not a tired child clambering for attention their first evening together, but a child intent on healing his savior. While Din patched his arm back together with the bacta spray that was nearly empty and definitely expired, the Child had reached out with the same intent look he’d had when healing Greef, and Din hadn’t let him. Instead, he’d locked his quarry, a troublesome child with innocent eyes and a hesitant smile in the pram and ignored him. 

Pieces kept falling together. He realized the Kid had probably healed him after he had fallen from the Sandcrawler. As he had fallen, he remembered thinking, _I won’t survive this._

And he shouldn’t have been able to. Beskar, maybe, could’ve absorbed the blow. But the cheap armor he had back then shouldn’t have—it hadn’t even survived the Mudhorn. He had seen people fall from shorter heights with better armor and die.

Or had been paralyzed. It would have been a slow death, trapped beneath the desert sun. 

But he had stood and retrieved the Child and found Kuiil and though he felt bruised and it hurt a little when he breathed too deeply, he was not injured as badly as being electrocuted and falling 200 paces would have warranted. 

He regarded the Child, fast asleep. The way he had been after the Mudhorn. The way he had been after he’d fallen. 

He knew Greef intended to betray them. He was guild leader, and a government employee before that, and he should’ve learned subterfuge, but he never had. He was an opportunist, but never a cheat. As a magistrate, it had been his downfall. As guild leader, it would be again. Din did not want to kill him, but he recognized a trap, and Greef had drawn his out as clearly as the doodles in Din’s childhood homework. 

The Mandalorian watched Greef’s face in the fire. His eyes were distant, and he rubbed his arm absently, his gaze finally focusing on the sleeping child. He glanced over at his co-conspirators, fast asleep, before lifting guilty eyes to regard Din mournfully.

The Mandalorian recognized self-doubt. He had thought handing over a child that he bore no allegiance to would be a simple task. But he had killed an IG-11 for it and put his entire Covert at risk for the safety of that same child. 

If he had realized what the Kid was doing, and had allowed himself to be healed, he would never have handed him over. Honor would not have allowed it. In doing so, he would have never earned his Beskar, which had saved both of them several times.

He would have never made it out of Nevarro alive. 

He looked over at the Child, eyes flickering beneath green lids. He wondered if the Kid had surmised as much. Knowing what he knew now, he realized the Kid could’ve easily unlatched the pram. He’d frozen a thunderous creature in its tracks. He’d reversed the insidious poison that had promised the sure conclusion of Greef Karga’s expressive existence. 

He could’ve broken free from his crib. But he hadn’t. 

Din had seen many fantastical things in his life and had heard rumors of many more. But he had never seen anything as strage as the Kid. 

Later, when Greef Karga killed his two minions and proposed a new plan, the Mandalorian was not surprised. He had seen the guild leader working through his decision during the march across the hot, unforgiving lands. 

The Empire had ruined things for all of them.

They would not allow it to ruin the Kid, too.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired on my oh, third or fourth rewatch of the 7th episode. I figured if the Mandalorian had allowed the Kid to heal him in that second episode, honor would never have allowed him to turn him over, and he would never have been able to go on his journey. Because he's definitely needed his Beskar. That man knows how to walk into a gunfight with guns blazing and consequences be damned.


End file.
